


Scholar's Mate

by youreyeslookliketheocean



Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: Chess, Chess Metaphors, Dream Smp
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-15
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-24 04:01:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30066348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youreyeslookliketheocean/pseuds/youreyeslookliketheocean
Summary: "It's called Scholar's Mate. Thinking three steps ahead is just how the game's won."In the space between the physical SMP and the void beyond it, a space only the server and its owner can occupy, Dream plays a game of chess...
Kudos: 13





	Scholar's Mate

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place BEFORE Tommy is trapped in the prison with Dream. This fic is sorta an out of body experience. Dream isn't really "mortal" here (Even though he says he is. He is technically more mortal than the intangible server); this is solely his “god” side messing with the server. :)

In the dark, cavernous room, a clock was ticking.

Dream’s fingers drummed a rhythm against the edge of the slick, wooden table, keeping time with the steady tik-tok of the clock. In front of him, a wide chessboard spanned almost the entire length of the tabletop. He’d chosen the white side today, and his pieces spread out in front of him in parallel lines. They gleamed in the pale light that wasn’t supposed to be here. The light that shouldn’t have existed in this box of immortality and infinity.

Dream hadn’t been surprised to find out that light was, actually, a finite thing. Of course it was. It was rather easy to smother.

_How are you going to get out of that jail?_

Dream scowled at the green text that scrawled out at the bottom of his vision.

He shoved a pawn forward. “I’ll get out eventually. Don’t worry. I have a plan.”

_A plan you haven’t bothered to share with me._

Dream hummed, reaching across the chess board to move one of the black knights forward. The bright side of being the only corporeal form in infinity was that he could play both sides of the board without being accused of cheating. There was no one else who could play with him—the server had no limbs to move the pieces—so he either played both sides, or didn’t play at all.

_Who’s the knight?_

Dream slid another white pawn forward, freeing his bishop for the next move. “The Enderman hybrid, Ranboo. He’s quick to jump at the chance to protect his friends, don’t you think?”

The server didn’t respond, but Dream felt the way the darkness around him tightened a bit—considering.

Dream reached across the board and shoved a black pawn forward to pin his other pawn in the middle. He’d played the moves in the wrong order, he realized, but that was okay. This was no fatal error.

_Is Tubbo still a pawn?_

“Mm. I guess so. George and Sapnap are more of my pawns than he is right now, though. He’s been off in Snowchester, from what I’ve heard, and I can’t use him if he doesn’t come visit me.”

_So he’s not of use anymore?_

“I never said that.”

Dream brought his white bishop out, lining it up with the black pawn currently guarding one of the black knights. If he took that, it was a one-space diagonal back to the black’s king. He wouldn't be taking with the bishop quite yet, though. This was just a threat. 

_Hm. What’s your plan with that bishop?_

Dream smirked, twirling the white bishop around and around between his fingers as he pretended to contemplate his next move. After a moment, he let it go and slid his queen out to the right side of the board. “I’m just setting up my win."

_So confident you’ll be winning?_

Dream nodded. He pulled another knight out from the black side of the board, if only to move something. He already knew how he intended to set this play up. It didn’t really matter what piece black moved anymore. It was too late to be saved.

“It’s an easy play, really. Get rid of the pawn with the queen, the king takes the queen in order to not be killed, and then the bishop comes and kills him anyway. It’s checkmate in less than ten moves, and once you’ve made it this far, there’s really not much the other side can do to save themselves.“

_Seems like a foolish play for the black side. Why are you letting your wins come easily? Don’t you want a challenge?_

Dream slid his queen across the board, kicking over black’s pawn and replacing it.

“I’m just practicing. Fundy taught me this play. It was before the wedding, before he stopped talking to me, and he was showing me his chess board for the first time.”

_Ah. So it’s sentimental. Tell me, is Fundy on the board today?_

Dream scowled, sinking deeper into his chair. He didn’t like when people referred to things of his, memories of his, as being sentimental. He didn’t have sentiments. He didn’t need attachments. 

“No."

The server was quiet for a moment, allowing Dream to move the black king into the white queen’s spot—removing her. Technically, he’d already completed the checkmate by moving his queen, but he felt like finishing the game off completely, today. Besides, he had the time. It wasn’t like there was anything else for him to be doing on the SMP. Not while his mortal body was trapped inside an obsidian box surrounded by lava.

_Which piece is Tommy?_

Dream, who had been reaching for the white bishop, froze.

Before, when he’d been manipulating Tommy in exile, he would have said the black king represented Tommy best. Dream had been trying to strip away the young teen’s power, his influence, after all. And nothing took power away faster than a checkmate.

Even when he’d fought Tommy in the Hall of Attachments, Tommy had still been the king. Tubbo would have been the queen—sacrificed for the sake of a checkmate—if Punz and the rest of his little army hadn’t come to save the day. Queens were loyal to a fault. Tubbo should have died that day.

But now... now Dream’s main goal wasn’t Tommy.

The black king wasn’t really a person anymore at all, was it? No. Now, it more accurately represented Dream’s confinement. If he could take out the obsidian box he was in, if he could find some way to defeat the prison's high tech security, he could be free again. And once Dream was free again... oh... there would be _hell_ to pay.

So what piece _was_ Tommy? Was Tommy even on the board anymore? The kid had come to visit him once, several weeks ago, but hadn’t been back since. Dream was beginning to worry he wouldn’t come back at all. Last he’d heard, the boy had been busy building some dumb hotel with Sam.

Dream’s eyes shifted to the two pawns, locked in the middle of the battlefield. “The white pawn,” he said, furrowing his eyebrows together. “I can’t use Tommy right now, per se, but if he comes back...” Dream snickered to himself. He’d been thinking about this plan for awhile now—bits and pieces of potential outcomes knitting themselves together inside his brain. “If Tommy ever comes back, he could be the piece that unleashes all the other pieces necessary for this checkmate. He’s still dealing with my manipulation of him. You saw him. I _broke_ him. He won’t move on that quickly—he’s stuck. He’ll come back, at least once more, to try and move past that black pawn. And when he does...”

Dream slid the white bishop across the board to the black king. When he was close enough, he swiped at the king’s stand, knocking him over and sending the piece clattering across the board.

“I’ll already have the pieces set up for my checkmate. He won’t even have seen it coming.”

_I’m... I’m confused._

Dream chuckled. “I don’t really expect you to get it, yet. Who knows? It might not even happen like I’m expecting. But... I like to think about all the different outcomes of a situation. It’s a good strategy when you’re playing chess.”

_Using that one-thousand IQ of yours, are you? Could’ve sworn Tommy taking an ax to your head twice would have knocked off a few of those points._

Dream outright cackled at the mention of the two canon lives he’d lost to Tommy in the Hall of Attachments. It felt like so long ago, even though it had only been... what? A month? Two months, maybe? Time in the prison seemed stretched. Every day was the same. It was easy to lose track of them, especially since he’d kept burning his clock until Sam took it away from him.

That was fine. He’d expected Sam to do that. He’d _wanted_ Sam to do that. It was just another play.

“You underestimate me just like they all do,” Dream said, picking up the king and setting the chessboard for another play. He shoved the white pawn dutifully back into line. “You’d think they’d realize by now that I always plan three steps ahead.”

The room around him seemed to condense again, the ticking clock growing even louder. Someone was coming. Not here, but in the SMP. Someone was coming to him in the prison. He had to go back soon.

_That’s an awful lot of steps ahead,_ the server’s green text scrawled out.

Dream placed the final piece back into its spot on the board, then sat back, satisfied with his play. “It’s called Scholar’s Mate,” he explained, a grin stretching across his face as the room seemed to pull inwards again. If he concentrated, he could feel the beginnings of cool obsidian forming beneath his fingertips, hear the steady gurgle of lava and feel its heat wafting across his skin. He could hear Sam talking to someone, faintly, on the other side.

His time here was up, it seemed. But the game was far from over.

“Thinking three steps ahead is just how the game’s won.”


End file.
